Sprezzatura
by amor-remanet
Summary: Post-Ariel & Trash spoilers for both ; Simon attempts to clear the air with Jayne. Written for rounds of kink on LJ for the prompt, "really big guns and really small needles." Slashy, weapon fetishization.


"I must admit, I'm still sensing some hostility towards me from your end, Jayne."

Simon can count off his reasons for thinking so with every step toward the man-ape, lying there on the operating table as though he's been etherised and not simply handcuffed there. One step — Simon smuggled River on board in the first place. Two steps — River is entirely herself and everything that entails, which goes without mentioning that she tried to slice Jayne's chest in half. Three steps — Simon is, to borrow and paraphrase the way Jayne says it, a soft-skinned, yellow-bellied, pretty-mouthed Core boy. Four steps — Simon lets the hard soles of his shoes fall, hard and unforgiving, on the infirmary floor.

"That's why I've asked you here," Simon clarifies, "and why I've seen to it that you can't leave until we've finished."

Face clinically neutral, bearing the sort of expression he would use to inform an overdose patient of the fact that he ought to have died from taking the cocktail that he did, Simon stares down at Jayne. He does not blink. He does not flinch, or shy away from the scowl Jayne is attempting to give him. Instead, his lips curl into the ghost of a smirk. Simon could show Jayne fear — under normal circumstances, he might do so — but these are decidedly abnormal circumstances. Locking eyes with Jayne, Simon slides his fingers over the buttons on his shirt, brings his hand down to his belt. He slips his thumb behind the fine, Core leather and drags the digits around to the gun at his hip.

The smirk is palpable now, and devious, as Simon fingers the pistol's handle, and he wonders… does this really count as a pistol anymore? It's over half the length of his biceps; it weighs more than he would think a gun ought to — that's what it is: a big gun. Simon tilts his head as he massages the gun — firm. Hard. He unsheaths it from the holster, and, for a moment, both he and Jayne are transfixed by the way the metal glimmers in the fluorescent lights. Simon holds the handle with one hand and strokes the gun with the other, inhaling sharply at the chill beneath his fingers. Jayne blanches as though he's just seen a set of perfect stitches perforate and hemhorrage.

"I think that we need to clear the air, Jayne," he tells him with a clean efficiency to his voice. With surgical precision — albeit with slower movements than those to which he is accustomed; the gun, Simon must admit, is fairly heavy — he slips the gun under the hem of Jayne's shirt and runs it along Jayne's skin. Back and forth, up and down, slowly, slowly — as though it's nothing whatsoever. "That's all. Nothing more. And for that to happen, you _need_ to trust me."

He guides the gun up Jayne's chest, nudges up the flimsy fabric of his work shirt and exposes the pink skin, the animalistic coat of hair. Jayne wriggles underneath the barrel, and Simon only applies more force to it, which doesn't stop Jayne from trying to get away. If anything, it only makes Jayne try harder, and this, in its turn, says nothing favorable about Jayne's intelligence. It isn't as though the logical progression is all that complicated: writhing around like a maggot leads to more pressure from Simon; he pushes the gun harder into Jayne's muscles and arches his eyebrows. "I don't think that you trust me, Jayne," he says.

"Damn ruttin' right I don't trust you!" Jayne snaps like a yelping dog. He struggles like one too. "What's got all up in yer head, boy — you — what're you… what d'you think yer playin' at — an' I—"

Simon cuts him off, too abruptly, by smacking his cheek with the barrel of the gun. Getting the message this time, Jayne shuts up. Wide-eyed, he stares up at Simon and even his legs stop thrashing. As Simon drags the gun down Jayne's cheek, neck, shoulder, arm, he feels the tension everywhere. Jayne expects him to have truly gone crazy. This isn't crazy talk; Simon is far too in control of his faculties for that.

And, yet, Jayne isn't. His face flushes. His breathing is short, and rapid. His heart races. Little beads of sweat start forming on his forehead, as though his skin is crying for Simon to stop. Simon taps the barrel on Jayne's cheek again, and lets it linger this time. He presses the round hole into the hinge of Jayne's and twists.

"You need to relax, Jayne," he drawls, moving the gun in a calculated curve, brushing it against Jayne's lips with the tenderness of a kiss. "I promised you that, so long as you're on my table, I won't hurt you. …It's pedestrian of you, really. Being worried about this piece of _luh-suh_." The gun clangs as he sets it on the counter. With an offhand smirk, he adds, "I wouldn't even know how to use it properly."

"Quit playin' thick with me, gorram it! Even a _mei yong-duh_ Core boy like you—"

"I didn't understand," Simon interjects, delicately lifting up a scalpel, "until recently, why men like you put so much stock in guns, Jayne, but now I think I can see the appeal. …They're large. And they're brash. They're certainly _useful_ — but they insist too much upon themselves. Do you see this?" He holds the scalpel up with pride. "I could do more to you with this than I could with that gun, and _then_… there is this."

Gingerly, Simon sets the scalpel by Jayne's hip. From off the counter, he picks up an empty syringe, with one of his finer needles attached to it. Lips formed as if to whistle, Simon holds the device in injection-ready form. He traces his initials, _SGT_, with it on Jayne's cheek, pressing hard, but not hard enough to draw blood — Simon Gabriel Tam… It's invisible, but he's left his mark now. Some realization in Jayne's eyes acknowledges this fact.

Head cocked and tilted up, Simon drops the syringe with a clatter and swiftly mounts the table. He straddles Jayne's hips, and leans down, hands clenching on Jayne's upper arms. "I am _not_ just some _mei yong-duh_ Core boy, Jayne," he says, voice lowered in funereal reverence. "I am a man, just as much as you or Captain Reynolds, and I am very capable of doing unto you as you would do to me and River. …Next time you wish to think about whether or not you can _trust_ me, consider what lies under everything that I _don't do_."


End file.
